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LOCAL COUPLE SHARES LIFE-LONG COMMITMENT TO CONSERVATION

Mar. 21, 2013

John and Fran Peterson make significant bequest to The Nature Conservancy in Kansas

TOPEKA ­­– The Nature Conservancy in Kansas, a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to the protection of ecologically important lands and waters, received nearly $1 million dollars from the estate of John and Fran Peterson.

Devoted members of The Nature Conservancy, the Petersons first became involved with the organization in 1989. The first project they helped support was acquiring critical land at Cheyenne Bottoms, near Great Bend.

Later, in 1999, when the Kansas Chapter acquired 16,800 acres of predominately short grass prairie in Logan County, just a few miles from where John grew up, the Petersons stepped up once again and helped with the acquisition of that property.

"It would be difficult to overstate John and Frances Peterson's fierce loyalty and commitment to The Nature Conservancy's Kansas mission as evidenced by what they did with and for the conservancy during their lifetimes and through their estates.” said executor of the Petersons’ estate, John M. Solbach III. “They strongly believed in and wanted to be a part of the Kansas Nature Conservancy's legacy.”

John, a native of Logan County and Fran, a native of Texas, met and married in Washington D.C. The couple spent their working careers in Washington and upon their retirement, moved back to Kansas. John passed away in 2009, followed by Fran in 2012.